A man was arrested in Texas after being accused of assaulting two newborn babies, hospital staff, and law enforcement officers at a local hospital.
Marcus Dewayne McCowan, 18, was found choking two newborn babies at Odessa Regional Medical Hospital’s Newborn Intensive Care Unit. He assaulted a nurse trying to stop him from killing the babies, resisted arrest by police responding to the scene, and reached for one of the police officer’s guns.
McCowan was arrested the same day and charged with two counts of attempted murder in the first degree, assault, and possession of a controlled substance.
According to a press release by the Odessa Police Department, the police were called to the medical center on October 3, at around 6:30 pm, because of a man allegedly strangling babies in the hospital.
When they arrived at the hospital and tried to subdue the out of control man, he started to pull away and fight the officers, refusing to be handcuffed. After being placed in custody, police started going through his things and found a THC vape pen. However, as one of the officers continued his search, McCowan unsuccessfully tried to grab the cop’s gun from its belt.
He attempted to take the gun again in the elevator, but his efforts were unsuccessful.
McCowan was in the hospital to support his pregnant girlfriend, who was in active labor and about to give birth. But when he was in the delivery room, he approached one of the nurses attending to her, grabbed her left arm with a lot of pressure, and muttered something unintelligible. This event made her very uncomfortable, and the charge nurse ordered him to leave the room.
After a few futile attempts to get back into the delivery room, he ran down the hospital halls and approached a newborn mother holding her baby, but she moved out of his way.
At some point, McCowan charged at three nurses who were standing near the nursery, which was locked, and shoved one of them to the ground. He then went to a newborn baby in a carrier near its mother.
He snatched the baby from its carrier and took off towards the lactation room, where a nurse who was chasing him down said that she saw him strangle the baby until its face started turning blue. The nurse rescued the baby, but McCowan then ran towards the nursery, which was now open. He grabbed another baby from its crib and started to choke and shake the newborn until her lips turned blue and her face was red.
According to the report, McCowan picked up the baby by her neck and began strangling and shaking her while shouting, “Die!” The nurse, pleading with the seemingly deranged McCowan to let the child go, placed her hands on the child’s head to reduce the impact of McCowan’s actions.
Security arrived just in time to separate McCowan from the baby, who stayed with the hospital’s therapist until the police arrived.
McCowan is now in the custody of the Odessa Police and is facing charges of attempted capital murder.
Looks like the only support McCowan will be giving his girlfriend is child support, and probably not even that.